Back to Soldeu

Today we headed back to Soldeu today, where the weather had improved somewhat compared to yesterday.

Day 3 of Andorra is now uploaded to Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645270540347/

After the electric bus turned up, we caught it to the start point and started walking towards one of the summits, where there was a large manmade dam. The hike was quite beautiful on the way up, and I stopped to take plenty of photos. There were many waterfalls, and you could almost always hear the sound of rushing water as we hiked right up next to the stream.

At the top of the climb, near the dam, there was a chalet with places to sleep for the mountaineers and hikers, a small cafe and toilets. Past there, the hike supposedly continued on towards France, but there was a patch of snow that had formed over the trail, so we attempted to climb up and over it, until it started raining again. It seems like the weather in the mountains here just creates itself. It can be warm and sunny in town, but really bad in the mountains.

After waiting it out for a while, we headed back to the chalet and then back down the mountain to the start point. Rather than catching the electric bus back, we decided to walk back along the 4km trail to where the car was parked. We had to walk on the road for the first part of it though - it was evidently used to move stock back and forth, and was almost impassable from the mud.

 My favourite photos from today

Eventually we made it back to the car, having hiked just over 16 kilometres. After another meal at the restaurant (our last) we will be sad to leave Andorra, and hopefully will make it back one day. Soon I'll upload another entry with some photos of our two days' travelling to Toulon.

'The Hill'

Today we only got in a small day of walking, but it was still jam-packed with views.

As always, my photos for today are uploaded to Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645270540347/

Our intended walk today was just past Soldeu, in the northeastern corner of Andorra. Having got there, we found that there was an electric bus up to the hike point, just as it started raining. We watched a helicopter buzz back and forth delivering materials for a construction site, before deciding that the rain was too heavy and heading back to the hotel.

Dad had mentioned that he walked to the top of 'the hill' directly in view of the hotel:

'The hill' (far right) at the top of the hotel

After doing some research, I found us a couple of routes up to the top of the hill, rather than coming up and back the same way, after which we started off.

Our route up took us through a tunnel, and up a dried-out ski run, which got very, very steep at stages!

Going up the ski run

We reached the top of the ski run after about an hour and a half, and took a few obligatory photos. We also checked our elevation, and found out that our climb had averaged about a 15% gradient up the hill. Very steep! The way down was less steep, mainly because we took the road that cars drive down. It was deserted, except for a few gypsy caravans and collections of sheep and cows.

 My favourites from today

The whole round trip took about three hours, including photo stops. The trip was door to door from the hotel, so once we got back we had about an hour before heading down to the restaurant for dinner. The good thing about the breakfasts here is that you don't really need lunch, so we've been surviving on breakfast and dinner all day.

That's all from Andorra until tomorrow, when we'll head back to Soldeu when the weather supposedly improves. Until then!

That was fun. Let's never do it again.

The main objective of our three days in Andorra was to walk. Or hike. And do it some more. I'd say after one day that we succeeded, but not in the way that we wanted.

What photos I did get today are uploaded to Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645270540347/

Incidentally, the hotel we are staying at has a half-board option, which ended up being a three-course meal at their restaurant downstairs. For €5 per head per night, which was what we paid, it was a bargain. Their breakfast was also in the restaurant, and while it wasn't an all-you-could-eat buffet, the amount of food they gave us was enough to fill us completely. It probably helped that we were the only guests in the hotel for the first two days. Apparently mid-week is slow here.

So at about lunchtime we headed to Arcalis, which was the location for one of our planned daily hikes. Just above Arcalis is a place for hiking in the summer, directly across from the dried-out ski runs that are used in winter. There are several lakes surrounded by mountains, and it was recommended to us by one of dad's friends.

Some of the track was really quite treacherous, but after a couple of hours it started raining and thunderstorming. We were about a third of the way through a loop, and we had just decided to head back before it started raining. So we had to cross some seriously dangerous rock faces and slide down some grass slopes in the wet and cold. It actually started hailing at one point. We came across a shelter from the hail and rain and stayed there for about 15 minutes, but we eventually made it back to the car, at which point it became fine and sunny again. Just typical!

It should be noted that there's been an afternoon thunderstorm for a few weeks now, but today it hit at around 3pm, instead of 5pm which is when it normally arrives, which is why we were caught out.

 My favourite photos from today

We got back to the hotel reasonably dry, and dried off in the room even more before heading back down for another three-course dinner. The menu, we were told, changes every day, where we were expecting it to be the same every day, so that was a bonus.

Hopefully the hiking gets a bit less harrowing from this point forward. We'll see tomorrow. Until then!